When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.
THE BORDEN FAMILY
The Borden family of Fall River, Massachusetts, were prominent citizens -- not only because of Old Andrew Borden's wealth, but also because of their old New England name. Lizzie was ninth-generation on her father's side to live in Fall River, and she took her rightful place in Fall River society despite her father's miserly habits.
Old Andrew grew up poor and made his own wealth in his own way. According to one Fall River legend, "When he was an undertaker, he cut the feet off the corpses so that he could cram them into undersized coffins that he got cheap.
Andrew Borden himself was not much of a churchgoer or a socialite; his community activities were reserved for the many boards of directors to which he belonged. These positions of prestige and power included being president of Union Savings Bank, director of First National Bank, director of Durfee Safe Deposit & Trust Company, director of Globe Yarn Mill Company, director of Troy Cotton & Woolen Manufacturing Company and director of Merchants Manufacturing Company.
In spite of Andrew Borden's business drive and Lizzie Borden's social ambition, the Bordens lived quite modestly in a narrow little house on Second Street, a busy thoroughfare in the south part of town.
Abby Borden was a short, shy, obese woman of 64, who had been a spinster until the age of 36, when she married the widowed Andrew Borden. She was devoted to her younger half-sister, Sarah Whitehead, to whom she had been a mother. Other than Sarah and Sarah's daughter, Abby, who had been named for her aunt, she appeared to have no other intimate relationships. She apparently provided, within the limits of Andrew's penuriousness, a comfortable home for her husband, who clearly appreciated her. Her stepdaughters were not particularly close to her. Lizzie, in fact, had been calling her "Mrs. Borden" for the past several years, rather than "Mother."
The family who lived in the house consisted of Mr. Andrew Borden, his second wife, Abby Borden, Lizzie Borden and Lizzie's older sister, Emma.
THE MURDERS
At about 11:10 a.m., on Thursday, August 4, 1892, a heavy, hot summer day, at No. 92 Second Street, Fall River, Massachusetts, Bridget Sullivan, the hired girl in the household of Andrew J. Borden, resting in her attic room, was startled to hear Lizzie Borden, Andrew's daughter, cry out, "Maggie, come down!"
When Bridget hurried downstairs, she found Lizzie standing at the back door. Lizzie stopped her from going into the sitting room, saying, "Don't go in there. Go and get the doctor. Run."
In the meanwhile, the neighbor to the North, Mrs. Adelaide Churchill, saw that something distressful was happening at the Borden house. She called across to Lizzie, who was at the back entrance to the house and asked if anything was wrong. Lizzie responded by saying, "Oh, Mrs. Churchill, please come over! Someone has killed Father!"
After sending her handy man and informing a passer-by of the trouble, Mrs. Churchill returned to the Borden kitchen. Dr. Bowen had arrived, along with Bridget, who had hurried back from informing Miss Russell. Dr. Bowen examined the body and asked for a sheet to cover it. Bridget said, "If I knew where Mrs. Whitehead (Abby Borden's younger sister) was, I would go and see if Mrs. Borden was there and tell her that Mr. Borden was very sick."
Lizzie said, "Maggie, I am almost positive I heard her coming in. Go upstairs and see."
In the meantime, Alice Russell had arrived, and Dr. Bowen, having left for a brief time to telegraph Lizzie's older sister Emma, who was visiting friends in the neighboring town of Fairhaven, had returned, and resumed examining Andrew Borden's body. It was on its right side on the sofa, feet still resting on the floor. His head was bent slightly to the right and his face had been cut by eleven blows. One eye had been cut in half and was protruding from his face, his nose had been severed. Most of the cuts were within a small area extending from the eye and nose to the ear. Blood was still seeping from the wounds. There were spots of blood on the floor, on the wall above the sofa and on a picture hanging on the wall. It appeared that he had been attacked from above and behind him as he slept.
Dr. Bowen found that Mrs. Borden had been struck more than a dozen times, from the back. The autopsy later revealed that there had been nineteen blows. Her head had been crushed by the same hatchet or axe that had presumably killed Mr. Borden, with one misdirected blow striking the back of her scalp, almost at the neck. The blood on Mrs. Borden's body was dark and congealed.
Dr. Bowen was heavily involved in the activities on the day of the murder, diagnosing Abby' early morning distress and fears as food poisoning, checking on Andrew and the rest of the household shortly thereafter, being the first to examine the bodies, sending a telegram to Emma, assisting Dr. Dolan with the initial autopsies, prescribing sulphate of morphine as a tranquilizer for Lizzie --- in short, from about 11:30 a.m. on, he was a constant presence. His involvement with the family, particularly on August 4, has led to his being a major figure in some of the conspiracies developed around the murders.
Within minutes of receiving the call at 11:15, the City Marshall, Rufus B. Hilliard, dispatched Officer George W. Allen to the Borden house. He ran the four hundred yards to the house, saw that Andrew Borden was dead, and deputized a passer-by, Charles Sawyer, to stand guard while he went back to the stationhouse for assistance. Within minutes of his return, seven additional officers went to the murder scene. By 11:45 a.m., the Medical Examiner, William Dolan, passing by the Borden house and noting the flurry of activity, was on the scene.
Thus, the discovery of at least one murder happened at 11:10 a.m., and within the next thirty-five minutes, the authorities were on the scene.
"What's the matter?" Bridget (called "Maggie" by the Borden sisters) asked.
"Come down quick! Father's dead! Somebody's come in and killed him!"
Bridget ran across the street to their neighbor and family physician, Dr. Bowen. He was out, but Bridget told Mrs. Bowen that Mr. Borden had been killed. Bridget ran back to the house, and Lizzie sent her to summon the Borden sisters' friend, Miss Alice Russell, who lived a few blocks away.
Mrs. Churchill asked, "Where is your mother?"
Lizzie said that she did not know and that Abby Borden, her stepmother, had received a note asking her to respond to someone who was sick. She told Mrs. Churchill that Bridget was unable to find Dr. Bowen. Mrs. Churchill volunteered to send her handyman to find a doctor and to send him to a telephone to summon help. The police station, about four hundred yards from 92 Second Street, received a message to respond to an incident at No. 92 at 11:15 a.m.
Bridget refused. Mrs. Churchill volunteered to go up and see if Abby had returned. Bridget reluctantly went with her. The two went up the front staircase together, and before they reached the landing they were able to see that Mrs. Borden was lying on the floor of the guestroom.
Bridget saw Mrs. Borden's body. Mrs. Churchill rushed by her, viewed the obviously dead body, and rushed downstairs, saying, "There's another one!"
THE INVESTIGATION
The investigation found that four events of significance occurred on August 3. The first was that Abby Borden had gone across the street to Dr. Bowen at seven in the morning, claiming that she and Andrew were being poisoned. Both of them had been violently ill during the night. Dr. Bowen told her that he did not think that her nausea and vomiting was serious, and sent her home. Later, he went across the street to check on Andrew, who ungraciously told him that he was not ill, and that he would not pay for an unsolicited house call. Bridget had also been ill that morning. No evidence of poisoning was found during the autopsies of Andrew and Abby.
The second was that Lizzie had attempted to buy ten cents worth of prussic acid from Eli Bence, a clerk at Smith's Drug Store. She told Bence that she wanted the poison to kill insects in her sealskin cape. Bence refused to sell it to her without a prescription. Two others, a customer and another clerk, identified Lizzie as having been in the drugstore somewhere between ten and eleven-thirty in the morning. Lizzie denied that she had tried to buy prussic acid, testifying at the inquest that she had been out that morning, but not to Smith's Drug Store, then changing her story by saying that she had not left the house at all until the evening of August 3.
Third, early in the afternoon, Uncle John Morse arrived. He was without luggage, but intended to stay overnight, so that he could visit relatives across town the next day. Both he and Lizzie testified that they did not see each other until after the murders the next day, although Lizzie knew that he was there.
Finally, that evening Lizzie visited her friend, Miss Alice Russell. According to Miss Russell, Lizzie was agitated, worried over some threat to her father, and concerned that something was about to happen. Lizzie returned home about nine o'clock, heard Uncle John and her parents talking loudly in the sitting room, and went upstairs to bed without seeing them.
The morning of the murder began with Bridget beginning her duties about 6:15. Uncle John was also up. Abby came down about seven, Andrew a few minutes later. They had breakfast. Lizzie remained upstairs until a few minutes after Uncle John left, at about 8:45. Andrew left for his business rounds around nine o'clock, according to Mrs. Churchill, the neighbor to the north. He visited the various banks where he was a stockholder, and a store he owned that was being remodeled. He left for home around 10:40, according to the carpenters working at the store.
Just before nine o'clock, Abby instructed Bridget to wash the windows while she went upstairs to straighten up the guestroom where Uncle John had spent the night.
Some time between nine and ten (probably 9:30) Abby was killed in the guestroom. She had not gone out. The note that Lizzie said Abby had received from a sick friend, asking her to visit, was never found, despite an intensive search. Lizzie said that she might have inadvertently burned it.
Andrew returned shortly after 10:40. Bridget was washing the inside of the windows. Because the door was locked from the inside with three locks, Bridget had to let Mr. Borden in. As she fumbled with the lock, she testified that she heard Lizzie laugh from the upstairs landing. However, Lizzie told the police that she had been in the kitchen when her father came home.
Mr. Borden, who had kept his and Mrs. Borden's bedroom locked since a burglary the year before, took the key to his bedroom off the mantle and went up the back stairs. Lizzie set up the ironing board and began to iron handkerchiefs. For a few minutes more, Bridget resumed washing windows.
Bridget went up to her room to lie down about 10:55. Andrew went to the couch in the sitting room for a nap. Lizzie went out into the yard, or to the barn, or to the barn loft, for twenty to thirty minutes. Where she had precisely gone was vague. She said that her purpose for going to the barn was to find some metal for fishing sinkers, since she intended to join Emma at Fairhaven and to do some fishing. When she returned at 11:10, she found her father dead.
The next thirty-five minutes have been recounted in the description of the crime:
11:15: Police received notification
11:30: Dr. Bowen arrived
11:45: Charles Sawyer, seven police officers and Medical Examiner William Dolan were on the scene
The police investigation began in earnest. Officer Mullaly asked Lizzie if there were any hatchets in the house. "Yes, she said. "They are everywhere." She then told Bridget to show him where they were. Mullaly and Bridget went down to the basement and found four hatchets, one with dried blood and hair on it --- cow's blood and hair, as it was later determined --- a second rusty claw-headed hatchet, and two that were dusty. One of these was without a handle and covered in ashes. The break appeared to be recent.
About this time, Uncle John returned, strolling into the backyard, picking some pears and eating them. He had been asked by Andrew that morning to return for the noon meal. He later testified that he did not notice if the cellar door was open or closed.
Sergeant Harrington and another officer, having questioned Lizzie as to her whereabouts during the morning, examined the barn loft where Lizzie said she had been looking for metal for fishing sinkers. They found that the loft floor was thick with dust, with no evidence that anyone had been up there.
At 3:00, the bodies of Andrew and Abby were carried into the dining room, where Dr. Dolan performed autopsies on them as they lay on the dining room table. Their stomachs removed and tied, and sent by special messenger to Dr. Wood at Harvard.
Upstairs, Deputy Marshal John Fleet questioned Lizzie, asking her if she had any idea of who could have committed the murders. Other than a man with whom her father had had an argument a few weeks before --- a man unknown to her --- she knew of no one. When asked directly if Uncle John Morse or Bridget could have killed her father and mother, she said that they couldn't have. Uncle John had left the house at 8:45, and Bridget was upstairs when Mr. Borden was killed. She pointedly reminded Mr. Fleet that Abby was not her mother, but her stepmother.
Emma returned from Fairhaven just before seven that evening. The bodies of the Bordens were still on the dining room table, awaiting the arrival of the undertaker. Sergeant Harrington continued the questioning of Lizzie. Finally, the police left, leaving a cordon around the house to keep away the large number of curious Fall River citizens who had been gathered around the front of the house since noon. Bridget was taken to stay with a neighbor, Alice Russell stayed in the Bordens' bedroom, Emma and Lizzie in their respective bedrooms, and Uncle John in the guest room where Abby had been killed.
The next day Lizzie's uncle, Hiram Harrington, married to Andrew Borden's only sister, Luana Borden Harrington, had given an interview the day before to the Fall River Globe, which now appeared. He falsely stated that he had had an interview with his niece the evening before --- the evening of the day of the murders --- and that his niece had not shown any emotion or grief, "as she is not naturally emotional."
Sergeant Harrington --- no relation to Hiram --- found Eli Bence and interviewed him about the attempt to buy poison. Emma engaged Mr. Andrew Jennings as their attorney. The police continued to investigate, but nothing of significance was found. Fall River was in an uproar, and the newspapers, both in Fall River and the metropolitan areas, were obsessed with the killings.
Saturday was the day of the funerals for Andrew and Abby Borden. The service was conducted by the Reverends Buck and Judd, of the two competing Congregational churches. The burial, however, did not take place. At the gravesite, the police were informed that Dr. Wood wanted to conduct another autopsy. At this second autopsy, the heads of Andrew and Abby were removed from their bodies and defleshed. Plaster casts were made of the skulls. Andrew's skull, for some reason, was not returned to his coffin.
On Sunday morning, Miss Russell observed Lizzie burning a dress in the kitchen stove. She said, "If I were you, I wouldn't let anybody see me do that, Lizzie." Lizzie said it was a dress stained with paint, and was of no use. It was this testimony at the inquest that prompted Judge Blaisdell of the Second District Court to charge Lizzie with the murders.
Judge Blaisdell conducted the inquest, the proceedings of which were kept secret. At its conclusion, Lizzie was charged with the murder of her father, and remanded to custody. Lizzie's only testimony during all of the legal proceedings was at the inquest. The next day, August 12, she was arraigned, and pleaded not guilty. She was held in Taunton Jail, which had facilities for female prisoners.
The preliminary hearing was held before Judge Blaisdell. Lizzie did not testify, but the record of Lizzie's testimony at the secret inquest were entered by Jennings. Tearfully, Judge Blaisdell declared Lizzie's probable guilt and bound her over for the Grand Jury.
The Grand Jury heard the case of Lizzie Borden during the last week of its session. Prosecutor Hosea Knowlton finished his presentation and surprisingly invited defense attorney Jennings to present a case for the defense. This was unheard of in Massachusetts. In effect, a trial was being conducted before the Grand Jury. It appeared for a time that the charge against Lizzie would be dismissed. Then, on December 1, Miss Russell testified about the burning of the dress. The next day, Lizzie was charged with three counts of murder. (Oddly, she had been charged with the murder of her father, the murder of her stepmother, and the murders of both of them.) The trial was set for June 5, 1893.
THE TRIAL
A brief synopsis of the events of trial is helpful in understanding how the jury came to its conclusion. The trial lasted fourteen days, from June 5, 1893, to June 20, 1893. After a day to select the jury -- twelve middle-aged farmers and tradesmen -- the prosecution took about seven days to present its case.
William Moody made the opening statements for the prosecution. He presented three arguments. First, Lizzie was predisposed to murder her father and stepmother and that she had planned it. Second, that she did in fact murder them, and, third, that her behavior and contradictory testimony was not consistent with innocence. At one point, Moody threw a dress onto the prosecution table that he was to offer later in evidence. As the dress fell on the table, the tissue paper covering the fleshless skulls of the victims was wafted away. Lizzie slid to the floor in a dead faint.
Crucial to the prosecution case was the presentation of evidence that supplied a motive for the murders. Prosecutors Knowlton and Moody called witnesses to establish that Mr. Borden was intending to write a new will. An old will was never found, or did not exist, although Uncle John testified at first that Mr. Borden had told him that he had a will, and then testified that Mr. Borden had not told him of a will. The new will, according to Uncle John, would leave Emma and Lizzie each $25,000, with the remainder of Mr. Borden's half million dollar estate --- well over ten million in present-day dollars --- going to Abby. Further, Knowlton developed the additional motive of Mr. Borden's intent to dispose of his farm to Abby, just as he had done the year before with the duplex occupied by Abby's sister, Sarah Whitehead. Knowlton then turned to Lizzie's "predisposition" towards murder. However, two rulings by the court were crucial to Lizzie's eventual verdict of innocent.
On Saturday, June 10, the prosecution attempted to enter Lizzie's testimony from the inquest into the record. Robinson objected, since it was testimony from one who had not been formally charged. On Monday, when court resumed, the justices disallowed the introduction of Lizzie's contradictory inquest testimony.
On Wednesday, June 14, the prosecution called Eli Bence, the drug store clerk, to the stand, and the defense objected. After hearing arguments from both the prosecution and the defense as to the relevance of Lizzie's attempt to purchase prussic acid, the justices ruled the following day that Mr. Bence's testimony --- and the entire issue of her alleged attempt to buy poison --- was irrelevant and inadmissible.
For the most part, the defense called witnesses to verify the presence of a mysterious young man in the vicinity of the Borden home, and Emma Borden to verify the absence of a motive for Lizzie as the murderer.
Emma Borden is something of an enigma. She is variously described as shy, retiring, small, plain looking, thin-faced and bony --- an unremarkable forty-three-year-old spinster. The only known depiction of her is an unsatisfactory drawing made of her in court. She was supportive of Lizzie during the trial, although there is one witness, a prison matron, who testified that Lizzie and Emma had an argument when Emma was visiting her in jail.
After the trial, she and Lizzie lived together at Maplecroft. While Lizzie found it impossible to attend church because of her ostracism, Emma, unlike her previous existence, became a devoted churchgoer.
On Monday, June 19, defense attorney Robinson delivered his closing arguments and Knowlton began his closing arguments for the prosecution, completing them on the next day. Lizzie was then asked if she had anything to say. For the only time during the trial, she spoke. She said, "I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me." Justice Dewey, who had been appointed to the Superior Court bench by then Governor Robinson, then delivered his charge to the jury, which was, in effect, a second summation of the case for the defense, remarkable in its bias.
At 3:24, the jury was sworn, given the case, and retired to carry out their deliberations. At 4:32, a little over an hour later, the jury returned with its verdict. Lizzie was found not guilty on all three charges. The jury was earnestly thanked by the court, and dismissed.
The defense used only two days to present its case.
AFTERMATH
Five weeks after the trial, Lizzie and Emma purchased and moved into a thirteen-room, gray stone Victorian house at 306 French Street, located on "The Hill," the fashionable residential area of Fall River. Shortly thereafter, Lizzie named the house "Maplecroft," and had the name carved into the top stone step leading up to the front door. It was at this time that Lizzie began to refer to herself as "Lizbeth."
In 1897, Lizzie was charged with the theft of two paintings, valued at less than one hundred dollars, from the Tilden-Thurber store in Fall River. The controversy was privately resolved.
In 1904, Lizzie met a young actress, Nance O'Neil, and for the next two years, Lizzie and Nance were inseparable. About this time, Emma moved out of Maplecroft, presumably offended by her sister's relationship with the actress, which included at least one lavish catered party for Nance and her theatrical company. Emma stayed with the family of Reverend Buck, and, sometime around 1915, moved to Newmarket, New Hampshire, living quietly and virtually anonymously in a house she had presumably purchased for two sisters, Mary and Annie Conner.
Lizzie died on June 1, 1927, at age 67, after a long illness from complications following gall bladder surgery. Emma died nine days later, as a result of a fall down the back stairs of her house in Newmarket. They were buried together in the family plot, along with a sister who had died in early childhood, their mother, their stepmother, and their headless father.
Both Lizzie and Emma left their estates to charitable causes; Lizzie's being left predominately to animal care organizations, Emma's to various humanitarian organizations in Fall River.
Bridget Sullivan, as it has been noted, died in 1948, more than twenty years after the death of the Borden sisters, in Butte, Montana.
This case remains forever as one of the most unsolved mysteries of our time.
